{"id":778208,"date":"2026-05-06T22:11:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:11:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/778208\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T22:11:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T22:11:18","slug":"kansas-city-artist-made-her-parade-of-hearts-sculpture-into-a-little-free-library-a-labor-of-love-kcur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/778208\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas City artist made her Parade of Hearts sculpture into a little free library: \u2018A labor of love\u2019 | KCUR"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 500 people submitted their names into the running to become one of this year\u2019s Parade of Hearts<\/a> artists. Abby Gust Hutter was one of the 150 artists selected to design a heart. The local jewelry designer<\/a> said she\u2019s never done a project of this magnitude.<\/p>\n

Hutter said when she saw the redesigned hollowed center of the heart, the vision of a functional little library popped into her head right away. But once she learned she was selected as an artist the reality of actually designing it sunk in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Uh-oh, I have to build this in real life now,\u2019\u201d Hutter said.<\/p>\n

In three months, Hutter brought her vision to life using foam to create books that surround the disc, a shelf within the shape of the heart, and doors to enclose the library.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Abby Gust Hutter used foam to create the books surrounding the edges of the heart sculpture. <\/p>\n

Hutter\u2019s ambition brought plenty of challenges. She said the timeline in her head didn\u2019t translate to real life. She had to make several pivots in the design process, but the 90-day timeline didn\u2019t allow for do overs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a labor of love,\u201d Hutter said.<\/p>\n

Since April, nearly 200 people have logged a visit<\/a> to her \u201cRead it Forward\u201d heart that sits outside Rainy Day Books<\/a> in Fairway, Kansas. Hutter spoke with KCUR’s Up To Date in a live broadcast from the bookstore<\/a>, just feet away from her heart.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve never done anything this public facing, and so, to receive this much feedback is just so gratifying and heartwarming,\u201d Hutter said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 500 people submitted their names into the running to become one of this year\u2019s Parade of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":778209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[648,1032,1033,171,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-778208","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-design","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116529928191939444","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}